


The Morning That Love Left

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Falling Out of Love, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7056406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coralee wakes up one day, feeling different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning That Love Left

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song Love Left by Chamber Band. I get serious Coralee vibes when I hear it.

She wakes up one day and feels different.

She doesn’t open her eyes right away, cataloging each part of her body, working her way up from her toes to her head, trying to figure out what, exactly, has changed within her.

She stops at her chest, takes a deep breath. Air fills her lungs, expanding them under her ribcage. She does it again, her eyes opening in surprise.

The weight on her chest has gone. 

Her hand runs up her bare stomach, tickling over her ribs, over her breast, until it reaches her heart.

It beats, but there is something missing.

She counts each heartbeat, but minutes go by and still she feels nothing.

Coralee wonders how long the ache there has been receding. How had she not noticed it?

Once, that ache had been her entire life.

What is she supposed to do now that it’s gone?

Getting out of bed, she readies herself for the day. As she showers and gets dressed, as she brushes her teeth and moisturizes her face, as she enters the kitchen and begins breakfast, she waits for everything to come rushing back to her.

It doesn’t.

There’s freedom in the emptiness in her heart where Richard Strand once lived. It’s exhilarating and terrifying. She feels guilt and hope, all at once.

As she boots up her laptop, she makes her coffee strong.

She had thought absence could make their love stronger. She thought that it would always be there, that familiar pleasure-pain deep in her chest. But even as she runs through each happy memory that she’d held close to her heart for all these years, Coralee feels nothing but nostalgia for simpler times, time where she and her husband and her adopted child had smiled and laughed and loved. 

There is still so much to do. She may not be in love with him anymore, but she still won’t abandon him. Not while the Order is watching him, stalking him. Not while Charlie may still be in danger, as well. She sips her coffee and checks her email for new leads.


End file.
